


A Push Too Far

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2019 [22]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-06 01:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21218363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: Fixing the mistakes of others very quickly became a regular pastime of the Doctor. Not that he appreciates being dragged into other people's messes, especially when those messes could have universal consequences.





	A Push Too Far

The Doctor and Ace held onto the console for dear life as the TARDIS shook from the waves caused by the time ship that had missed them by approximately three milliseconds as they were flying through the Vortex.

“What on Gallifrey do you think you’re doing?” demanded the Doctor to the pilot he knew couldn’t hear him. “You could have caused a Time Ram you _rrrrrrr_eckless moron!”

“You could’ve hit us!” Ace joined in the shouting, also aware that the pilot could not respond. “Road hog!”

The Doctor walked briskly over to the scanner and set it to examine the time ship, hoping it was not yet out of range. To his surprise, it wasn’t: rather it was stationary. It was sitting in almost the exact same spacetime location as them, as though the pilot was waiting for them. The Doctor pressed a button and a noise sounded through the console room.

“What was that Professor?” Ace asked.

“I sent a signal to the other timeship,” the Doctor responded. “Telling the pilot that we’ve noticed them and are _rrrrrr_eady to communicate.” His voice dropped to an irritated mumble. “Not that we could have missed them. I hate bad drivers.”

“You and me both,” Ace agreed. “So are we gonna follow, or what? And what kinda ship even is it?”

“Let me take a look,” the Doctor pressed another button and brought up an image of the ship. His eyebrows shot up and he leaned back slightly. “It’s a TARDIS! Why would a TARDIS be trying to grab my attention?”

As if in response, the TARDIS took off in the direction it was flying before the near collision. The Doctor wordlessly directed the blue box after it, keeping pace as it flew through the Vortex, before suddenly veering off and coming in to land on an asteroid possessed of an atmosphere, but uninhabited. The cylindrical grey capsule vworped into place next to the blue police box. The Doctor and Ace exited their TARDIS and watched as the door slid open on the other one. The Doctor rolled his eyes as a figure emerged, dark hair worn loose down to her shoulders and leather jacket flapping behind her.

“Oh,” the Doctor sighed. “It’s you.”

“Hi Doctor!” the Rider called. She walked over and did not say hello to Ace. “Nice umbrella, haven’t seen this one of you before.”

“It’s been a while,” the Doctor confirmed. “Ace, this is the _Rrrrrrrr_ider. I would introduce you to her, but she’d just ignore you.”

“Wotcher,” Ace held out her hand.

The Rider did indeed ignore her as she focused her attention solely on the Doctor. “Good to see you anyway, Doctor!”

“See me?” the Doctor asked. “You nearly hit me with that little _rrrrr_acing act of yours!”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” the Rider looked down slightly. “I needed to get your attention. I...might need your help.”

“Our help?” Ace repeated. “Why, what have you done?”

The Rider ignored her and answered the question she pretended the Doctor had asked her. “So, I was on Skaro for...various reasons-”

“Mucking about in Dalek history?” the Doctor chastised her. “That’s inc_rrrrr_edibly dangerous you know.”

“I know, I know,” the Rider put her hands in the air in an attempt at a gesture of humility, and continued without any sort of apology. “So I was on Skaro and I managed to get away from there, but a squad of Daleks sort of followed me away.”

The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

“I managed to lose them just fine.”

Ace raised her eyebrows.

“Buuuuuuut,” the Rider rubbed the back of her neck guiltily. “I might have left them behind on Sontar. Like, right when the Sontarans were developing space travel.”

“So what you’re saying is-” Ace started, but the Rider interrupted her as if she hadn’t even been speaking.

“If we don’t do anything there could be a war between Skaro and Sontar that history didn’t account for. Whoops.”

"Oi!” Ace shouted at her before the Doctor could respond. “You ignoring me? That’s rude!”

The Rider continued to pay her zero heed and began speaking to the Doctor again. “Soooo...can you help me get rid of them?”

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” Ace yelled. “Don’t you blank me, toerag!”

The Rider finally turned to Ace. “Will you shut up!” she snapped. “Learn some manners, I am trying to talk to your owner!”

“OWNER?!” Ace burst out. “You listen to me you little sh-”

“Let me handle this, Ace,” the Doctor hurriedly cut Ace off, stepping between her and the Rider. He whispered in Ace’s ear. “The _Rrrr_rider is...complicated, let me talk to her, I promise we can chat later.”

Ace folded her arms and huffed, but turned and walked away, leaning against the TARDIS and looking at the Rider as if she was trying to set her on fire with her eyes. The Doctor silently sighed in relief that Ace had left her supply of Nitro-9 in the TARDIS.

“Right then,” he turned back to the Rider. “Yes, we can help avert an act of anachronistic agg_rrrrr_ession. But I hope you learn something from this.”

The Rider waved away his lecturing tone. “Yes, yes, I’ve learned not to go to Skaro, it’s scary, can we just fix things? I’m all for stirring up some history, but entire wars? No thanks.”

“Very well, we shall _rrrrr_ender our assistance,” the Doctor turned and walked back to the TARDIS, opening the door and following Ace inside. Once they were in, Ace erupted.

“Who the hell does she think she is, and who does she think I am, some kind of pet? I’ve a right mind to go out and hit her right in her smug-”

“Ace, Ace, please calm down,” the Doctor pleaded with the fuming teenager in front of him. Much as he loved Ace and saw her as a young student, even he couldn’t deny she was terrifying when she was angry.

“Calm down?!” Ace challenged him. “She’s out there treating me like I’m beneath her and she’s all high and mighty and better than us mere humans and you’re telling me to just lie down and take it?”

“Absolutely not,” the Doctor replied with a shockingly evil smirk. “Whatever she’s done, she’s inevitably not telling us everything. There’ll be something she’s neglected to mention, and when it comes to light, you have free reign on the _rrrrrr_etributory actions.”

Ace breathed and stopped pacing. “So, when she betrays us, I get to do whatever I want in return?”

“P_rrrrr_ecisely.”

“Wicked!”

“Now, shall we draw some Daleks away from starting yet another war?” he gestured towards the console.

“What did you have in mind?” Ace asked with a sparkle in her eye.

The two TARDISes launched from the asteroid and flew halfway across the universe and several centuries back in barely the time it took to brew a cup of tea. After they arrived, the Doctor and Ace surveyed the scene on the TARDIS scanner, sipping at their tea. A group of Daleks, thankfully having barely left their time capsule, surveying the area and being shockingly cautious. Before the Doctor and Ace had time to discuss a plan, however, the Rider’s TARDIS flew by, transmitting a sound that caused Ace to cry out and hold her hands over her ears, and the Daleks below to start yelling “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!”.

“What was that?” Ace asked the Doctor too loudly, ears still ringing from the noise.

“It was a sentence in the Daleks’ native language,” the Doctor explained. “I won’t translate it for you because I’m not sure I can bring myself to say something that vulgar.”

Ace giggled, then remembered that she hated the Rider and stopped herself. “So, how are we gonna follow that up.”

“Like this,” the Doctor smiled, walking back to the controls. “Hold on,” he instructed, as he flew the TARDIS down and collided with the Daleks’ time capsule, knocking it on its side and fleeing into the Sontaran sky.

“IT IS THE DOCTOR!” the Daleks screamed in uneven unison. “SEEK! LOCATE! EXTERMINATE!”

The Daleks piled into their time capsule - with difficulty, as it was now on its side and the artificial gravity inside was playing havoc with their sense of coordination - and after a couple of minutes the capsule took off in pursuit of the offending TARDISes, which entered the Time Vortex, the Daleks in hot pursuit. The Doctor’s TARDIS pulled ahead of the Rider’s and, at Ace’s urging with a smile even more sinister and petty than the Doctor’s before, pulled into reverse and rammed into the Rider’s TARDIS, sending it spinning back through the Vortex, past the speeding Dalek time capsule and back to Sontar.

An image of the interior of the Rider’s TARDIS flashed up on the scanner. The Rider held onto the console for support, and once the spinning had lessened in intensity let go, and held out her arms in a shrug of disbelief and annoyance, scowling at the two. Ace stuck her tongue out at the Rider and turned off the scanner, snickering to the Doctor, who joined her amusement despite his knowing he should be more mature.

“Nice one!” Ace said, holding out her hand for a high five.

“Why thank you very much,” the Doctor returned the high five. “Now then, to lure these errant Daleks back to Skaro.”

“The Rider will be okay, won’t she?” Ace asked, suddenly concerned. “I mean, she was annoying and a right pain, but she won’t die, right?”

“Oh, she’ll be fine,” the Doctor reassured her. “She’s resourceful, she’ll be stuck on Sontar for a while but she’ll repair her TARDIS and be back in the universe within, ooh, a year probably.”

“Serves her right,” Ace switched back into vindictive mode. “So, what are we going to do about these Daleks then?”

“Oh, I’ll give them the old runaround, make them use up all their fuel for time travel,” the Doctor answered. “Then we’ll drag them back to Skaro, and they should hopefully stay there for the time being.”

“They won’t be happy with you,” Ace warned him.

“I’m p_rrrrr_etty sure every Dalek in history has a ‘shoot on sight’ policy when it comes to me already,” the Doctor brushed her concerns off. “I’ll be fine.”

“The way she’s going I wouldn’t be surprised if the Rider got the same kind of treatment from everyone she came across,” Ace observed.

“Neither would I, Ace,” the Doctor replied, and for a second Ace could swear she heard a hint of pride in his voice. “Neither would I.”


End file.
